Maude Callen Clinic
National Register Listing
Street Address:
2669 S.C. Highway 45, Pineville (Berkeley County)
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817708028
Description and Narrative:
The Maude Callen Clinic is a vernacular one-story concrete block and frame health clinic constructed in 1953. It is located in a predominantly rural section of Berkeley County along the northern boundary of Lake Moultrie. The building, which is rectangular in plan, features an entry portico, metal casement windows, and copper coping. After a long period of vacancy and severe deterioration, the building was restored in 2017-2018. The Maude Callen Clinic is significant for its associations with Maude Daniel Callen (1898-1990), a nurse midwife who provided essential health care to working-class Black families in rural Berkeley County from 1923 through her retirement in 1972. Callen is considered one of the most influential figures in Berkeley County history. She became the first Black public health nurse to be hired by the Berkeley County Health Department and one of the first nurse-midwives in the state. Through her personal midwife services and midwife training program, Callen significantly diminished maternal and infant death in Berkeley County by 1955 and is credited with delivering nearly 75% of Berkeley County’s population by 1972. She also organized Berkeley County’s first school vaccination programs and birth certificate process within the Black community. She went above her job duties as a nurse midwife to clothe, feed, and counsel the poor, and she personally financed the improvement of the county’s health clinics and distribution of a variety of resources when municipal or state funds were not awarded. Callen and her work made national headlines in December of 1951 when she was featured in Life magazine and received over $25,000 in donations, which she used to build a modern health clinic that allowed her to more fully treat and care for one of the poorest populations in South Carolina. Today, the Maude Callen Clinic stands as testament to the significant work and legacy of Callen and her mission to help as many rural families as possible in one of the most impoverished communities in the state. With the demolition of the original church where Callen held her earliest clinics, as well as Callen’s dwelling and the Berkeley County Health Center in Moncks Corner, the Maude Callen Clinic is both the best and last surviving resource which represents her work. Listed in the National Register October 6, 2023.
Period of Significance:
1953 – 1972
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Ethnic Heritage: Black;Health/Medicine;Other
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
October 6 2023
